Year: 2017
Genre: Comedy
Directed: Dax Shepard
Stars: Michael Pena, Dax Shepard, Vincent
D’Onofrio, Kristen Bell, Jessica McNamee, Adam Brody, Ryan Hansen, Justin
Chatwin, Jamie Bock, Cameron Cruz, Clay Cullen, Arturo del Puerto
Remember 21 Jump Street (2012)? Boy that was a fun movie. In many ways it
was the perfect meta-commentary of the type of low-stakes, low-rent, low-brow crap
Hollywood has been throwing at us recently like chimps in a mismanaged zoo. Literally
anything and I mean anything with even a modicum of franchise potential is
being made and remade and remade again these days. Thus when 21 Jump Street (based on a soapy
cheap-looking TV show) reared its ugly head, I for one was clenching for an
awful night at the cinema.
Thankfully I had to wait for the sequel for that to happen. |
In many ways I was expecting
something like Chips, i.e. an ill-conceived, aged and offensive grotesquery that
at best is a watered down version of literally everything you’ve already seen.
Remember all those completely forgetful Martin Lawrence clones that were
hammered out one-by-one in the early 2000’s? Me neither; how about those equally
forgettable Kevin Hart movies? Okay, getting warmer. Well imagine that plus a
big fat layer of tepid, lazy direction and you got the basic ingredients for
what should honestly be renamed “Bullchips.”
Chips
was directed, written and stars Dax Shepard who you may remember as the dude in
Without a Paddle (2004) who was not Matthew
Lillard or Seth Green. Here he plays Jon Baker, an over-the-hill Motocross athlete
who, according to co-star Michael Pena, is “always two-beers too familiar.” He’s
the typical California “dude” who’s far too self-involved to notice he’s a
walking, talking stereotype. Or at least he is until the script asks him not to
be.
Speaking of stereotypes, Michael Pena
takes the place of the rambunctious Erik Estrada as Poncherello. In this
universe he’s an undercover FBI Agent searching for dirty cops, stolen loot and
California dimes willing to give it up to the “Ponch”. While it’s easy to say
Pena is the best part of this movie; saying that would be like complimenting
the only cylinder firing on a broken motor.
Chips
is based off the famed 1970’s TV show which ran from 1977 until 1983. As you
would expect from something that hasn’t been figuratively opened since the 70’s,
this film is a festering gob of unrecognizable gunk. The police procedural portions
of the film are rote and redundant while the duo-building moments of banter reek,
of awkwardness and fragile male egoisms that haven’t been funny since the
Reagan Administration. Yet there they are, on the screen just begging audiences
to laugh as Baker and Ponch discuss at length the preference and frequency of night-long
a**-licking.
Aside from the film’s boorish
leads, Chips has a hard time communicating who or what we should actually care
about. The audience is made aware of who our bad guys are long before our leads
do, yet the film goes through so many airless, dimensionless minutes trying to
coax our heroes in the right direction. Then the film goes into fruitless
avenues to play out juvenile bits for the sake of little or no information
pertinent to the story. Then, to add insult to injury they flip through a
Highway Patrol database and randomly point to their bad guy because of nothing
more than a mean look.
Gee, I wonder who the villain is going to be! |
It gets worse. Shepard’s Baker for
example takes a lot in stride – His wife’s obvious infidelity, his advanced
age, Ponch’s bathroom habits etc. He takes it all in stride with the exception
of his work which he takes on with the vigor of a newly endowed meter maid. It’s
supposed to be a reoccurring joke yet because the movie is so shoddily edited
there are so many, either setups that are never executed or comedic payoffs
that seem to come out of nowhere. Then they simply drop it in favor of Ponch’s
romance, I guess with a fellow officer (Bock)?
Through all the mired,
half-realized nonsense, only one thing remains clear – Chips was trying, trying
to follow the exact same playbook as 21
Jump Street. Yet while 21 Jump had
the rare quality of being reliably absurd and self-referential, this
thing is just a vulgar, incompetent mess with little worthwhile to say other
than “watch out for yoga pants!”
Final Grade: F
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